Retrato em Branco e Preto

I’m familiar with each step along this road
I know it goes nowhere
I know its secrets by heart
I’m familiar with the stones in the path
And I know, too, that there, alone,
I’m going to end up so much the worse
What can I do to fight the enchantment
Of this love that I deny so much, I avoid so much
And that, nevertheless, always recasts its spell
With its same sad old facts that, in a picture album, I insist on collecting

Here I go again, like a fool, seeking the despondency
Of whose acquaintance I’ve grown weary
New sad days, sleepless nights
Verses, letters, my dear
And still I write to you again, to tell you this is a sin
My breast is so scored with memories from the past
And you know the reason
I’m going to collect one more sonnet, another portrait in white and black
To mistreat my heart

This was the first song that Tom Jobim and Chico Buarque worked on together, and its instrumental version has become a jazz standard.

Chico Buarque (standing) and Tom Jobim.

Jobim and Buarque were introduced in 1964 or 1965, as Chico recalls, by the music producer Aloísio de Oliveira; later, their mutual friend and partner Vinicius de Moraes brought them closer. In 1967 Tom asked Chico to write the lyrics to this song, which he’d already released in its instrumental version as “Zíngaro,” meaning gypsy. (The use of half tones in the first verses evokes a certain aimlessness.)

Chico was nervous. He had only written lyrics for one song that was not his own – a partnership with his close friend Toquinho, “Lua Cheia” – and he was unsure of his talents as a lyricist. But he recounts that at this point, Tom treated him more like a pupil than a partner, offering effusive encouragement and telling him that his lyrics were simply splendid.

As Charles Perrone points out in Seven Faces: Brazilian Poetry since Modernism, Chico’s sonnetlike lyrics, with two fourteen-line stanzas, recall Vinicius de Moraes’s romantic poems, which is not surprising since Chico had grown up admiring Vinicius, a close friend of his father, Sérgio Buarque de Holanda.

Tom’s only question – which you, too, may have wondered – was why they should use “portrait in white and black” when everyone says “black and white.” Chico defended his phrasing by suggesting that, were the word order reversed, the only word he might rhyme with “branco” (white) would be “tamanco” – a wood-soled shoe. Tom preferred the singer collect another sonnet, and not a shoe.

Chico, for his part, tried to change the lyrics shortly before recording, asking Tom if they might substitute the words “peito tão marcado” – translated here as “breast so scored” – with “peito carregado”, or heavy breast; he said he’d used “so” in the first version merely as a crutch. But for Tom, Chico’s suggested change called to mind a tuberculosis patient, since “peito” means both breast and chest in Portuguese, and “carregado” can mean gloomy or heavy, but can also mean full, loaded, or in some cases, congested. So they stuck with the original lyrics, and João Gilberto recorded the song in 1968. (Here he is singing it.)

As the pair continued working together, Tom abandoned his accepting attitude and second-guessed many of Chico’s lyrics. In the following posts you can read about their spirited spats over the lyrics for “Piano na Mangueira” and “Sabiá.”

Published by lyricalbrazil

My name is Victoria Broadus and in early 2012 I moved from Brooklyn, New York, to Brazil - first São Paulo, and now Rio de Janeiro. I began studying Portuguese while working toward a Master's degree in Latin American Studies at Georgetown University, and have since become fluent. I love Brazilian music and want to be able to share it with more people, so I'm working on translating songs to English and providing some contextual interpretation and stories about the songs and the musicians.
**Update: In August 2017 I moved from Rio back to Washington, D.C., to start a PhD in History at Georgetown. I haven't been able to post as frequently because of that, but will be back to writing more soon!**
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I would like to leave a suggestion: Maybe “minha cara” should be translated as “my dear”. Then I guess it would be something like: ” …New sad days, sleepless nights / Verses, letters… My dear… In the future* I’m (still) going to write to you again… to tell you this is a sin…” and so on. =)

Victoria, Raquel and everyone else: Please note that Georgetown Prof. M. Ferreira and I will be doing the summer study abroad program in Rio this term June 30-August 10. The afternoon theme is “Cantares e Falares do Brasil”, so song will be a focus. Keep up the good work and come by when you are in Rio. (PS depois haverá sessões em Sampa, depois do 20/07). Abs.

What a fantastic project. I started listening to Brazilian music a few weeks ago because I was (rather randomly) curious about the phonetics of Portuguese…and I kinda fell in love! Thank you for sharing your translations and the stories behind these songs. 🙂

Victoria: Your trasnslation is brilliant, I was tryng to find a good Portugues/Español translation but the only posibility is some translations wich are horrible,usually someone believe that doing a word by word transcription are OK, but the fact is you should try to follow the poetical and metrical sence of the song than a bunch of bloody words with some line order.I think that the 60´s 70´s brazilian popular music are absolutely awesome,the political life,the 6o´s 70´s mood portrait of changes in society made the artist more acuracy with text and melodies.My favorites are Tom Jobim,Chico Buarque……(“A construcao” The built,a himn about a III World worker!!!!)Vinicius de Moraes,”Como nossos pais” writen by Antonio Carlos Gomez Belchior an many more.Again congratulations for the exelent translation. Sergio from Patagonia chilena